{"id":4706,"date":"2017-12-18T04:59:40","date_gmt":"2017-12-18T11:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/margie\/?p=4706"},"modified":"2018-08-12T05:19:15","modified_gmt":"2018-08-12T11:19:15","slug":"marshmallows-came-from-the-swamp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/margie\/marshmallows-came-from-the-swamp.html","title":{"rendered":"The History of Marshmallows – They Came From The Swamp ?????"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s not a campfire without s’mores, but where did that funny name come from?<\/em><\/p>\n

AUGUST 14, 2015 The Gooey Story of S\u2019mores
\nby\u00a0Rebecca Rupp<\/p>\n

Though nobody quite agrees on where s\u2019mores came from (or who gave them their silly name), it\u2019s clear to me that the things could only have been invented by a kid. Nobody over ten years-old would ever think of squishing together a chocolate bar, a toasted marshmallow, and a pair of graham crackers, and calling it food.<\/p>\n

That said, the s\u2019more\u2019s\u00a0long yet vague history, dates back at least to 1927 when a recipe for the more formally designated \u201csome mores\u201d appeared in\u00a0Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts, a\u00a0helpful tome which also includes instructions for building 12\u00a0different kinds of campfires. Other sources attribute the original recipe to the Campfire Girls; and there\u2019s also an argument that the gooey treat has its origins in the Victorian era, when popular picks for desserts were\u00a0\u201csandwich cookies\u201d and sponge cakes, variously filled with jam, cream, or lemon curd.<\/p>\n

Alternatively, if the jump from elegant tea cake to sticky campfire snack seems a little much, other inspirational possibilities include the\u00a0Mallomar\u2014a graham cracker cookie topped with a blob of marshmallow and coated with chocolate, manufactured by Nabisco and first sold in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1913; or the\u00a0MoonPie\u2014a pair of graham cracker cookies with a marshmallow filling, dipped in chocolate \u2013 that first went on the market in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1917.<\/p>\n

Well, maybe. But my bet is still on a bunch of messily-experimental little girls.<\/p>\n

By the time the Scouts were first scarfing down their s\u2019mores, the marshmallow was no longer the healthful all-natural preparation it had been in ancient times. According to Tim Richardson\u2019s\u00a0Sweets: A History of Candy, the original marsh mallow (Althaea officinalis) was a swamp plant somewhat resembling a hollyhock, native to Europe and West Asia. Its roots produce a sticky white sap used medicinally for centuries as a sore-throat cure. In the Middle Ages, chunks of the marsh mallow root were candied to make \u201csuckets,\u201d the medieval version of cough drops.<\/p>\n

In the mid-1800s, the culinarily adept French came up with the idea of turning marsh mallow sap into something that was simply good to eat, whipping it into a meringue-like froth with egg whites and sugar and pouring it into molds to form fat, squashy confections that Richardson describes as \u201chalfway between air and toffee.\u201d Producing these primal marshmallows was time-consuming and labor-intensive. They were accordingly expensive and only the upper classes got them.<\/p>\n

By the late 1800s, however, the mallow plant extract was replaced by the more readily available gelatin, which is what keeps modern marshmallows so light and fluffy. The average marshmallow is over half just plain air. (Don\u2019t believe it? Check out this\u00a0experiment.) The gelatin \u2013 a breakdown product of collagen\u2014provides the skeleton that holds the air bubbles securely in place. Cheap gelatin combined with faster production processes meant that marshmallows were now affordable, and\u2014no longer an elite treat\u2014they were soon increasingly ubiquitous.<\/p>\n

By the 1890s, according to\u00a0period newspaper reports, marshmallow roasts were the latest in summer fads. \u201cThe simplicity of this form of amusement is particularly charming,\u201d reads a description of 1892. \u201cOne buys two or three pounds of marshmallows, invites half a dozen friends, and that is all the preparation required.\u201d The proper means of consuming marshmallows, the author adds, is to nibble them directly off the end of the stick\u2014or off the end of your neighbor\u2019s stick, which may be why the author also touts the marshmallow roast as \u201can excellent medium for flirtation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The roasted marshmallow\u2014and by extrapolation, the s\u2019more\u2014traditionally requires a campfire. (Unless, like New Zealand climber Simon Turner, you\u2019re brave enough to\u00a0roast your marshmallows over an active volcano.) Most of us, after a couple of incendiary experiments, come to terms with the best way to brown a marshmallow, though for those who don\u2019t, the\u00a0National Marshmallow Roasters Institute\u00a0(which has branches in Sacramento, Columbus, and Paris) provides\u00a0helpful tips.<\/p>\n

Once you\u2019ve mastered the marshmallow, the s\u2019more is simply a matter of assembly. The\u00a0original 1827 recipe\u00a0(for 8) calls for eight sticks, 16 graham crackers, 8 bars of plain chocolate (each broken in half), and 16 marshmallows.<\/p>\n

\u201cToast two marshmallows over the coals to a crisp gooey state and then put them inside a graham cracker and chocolate bar sandwich. The heat of the marshmallow between the halves of chocolate bar will melt the chocolate a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nowadays\u00a0alternative fillings\u00a0for s\u2019mores include everything from raspberry jam to peanut butter, hazelnut butter, Nutella, caramel, and lemon curd; substitutes for graham crackers include chocolate chip cookies and wheat crackers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, cautioning that the traditional s\u2019more is hardly a healthy snack, proposes substituting low-fat vanilla yogurt and strawberries for the chocolate and marshmallow. The graham crackers, says the government, are still OK.<\/p>\n

Or s\u2019mores eaters can simply exercise restraint.<\/p>\n

\u201cThough it tastes like \u2018some more,\u2019\u201d the 1827 directions conclude dampingly, \u201cone is really enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong>\u00a0 theplate.nationalgeographic.com<\/p>\n

PS\u00a0<\/strong>If you put leftover marshmallows in the freezer, they will not stick together.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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It’s not a campfire without s’mores, but where did that funny name come from? AUGUST 14, 2015 The Gooey Story of S\u2019mores by\u00a0Rebecca Rupp Though nobody quite agrees on where s\u2019mores came from (or who gave them their silly name), it\u2019s clear to me that the things could only have been invented by a kid. … Continue reading “The History of Marshmallows – They Came From The Swamp ?????”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[112,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous-information","category-sweets-other"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/margie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/margie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/margie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/margie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/margie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4706"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/margie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6392,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/margie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4706\/revisions\/6392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/margie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/margie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/margie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}